atonement is a tricky thing
by myhomeistheshire
Summary: After the war, Clarke is left with an eternity in front of her and nothing to fill it with.


When she turns away, it's like her heart is being ripped into pieces. Her feet are like lead - _take a step_, she commands herself. _Now, take another_.

(she has to do this)

(she had to do it)

It doesn't help, and Clarke can't help but think that this weight on her chest - collapsing her lungs, closing her throat, weighing down her footsteps - will never go away._ I forgive you,_ Bellamy had said, but it doesn't work like that. She'd killed innocents - _children._ And maybe it was for good reasons, but really, wouldn't someone else - someone better - have found another way?

(maybe she's been a monster all along)

(maybe it just took a while for her to realize it)

* * *

So she kisses his cheek, and even though it feels like she's tearing away a part of her, she walks away. Away from him, away from the only shred of home she has left. She's alone now, so she'd better get used to the feeling.

She walks until dusk falls. She kills a rabbit for food, but when it lays in front of her, bleeding, with it's eyes looking up at her in terror, she can't bring herself to touch it. Her breathing comes faster, faster - bile rising in her throat, sobs clawing out of her. She deserves this, she deserves this, she deserves so much worse.

It's forever and a day before she stops. Before she's too weary to take another step. She doesn't bother to set up camp, just slumps to the ground and crashes headlong into unconsciousness. She's exhausted, but she sleeps fitfully - they're there, waiting, every time she closes her eyes.

_You could've saved me._

_You could've found another way._

_You could've stopped this all._

(she deserves this, she deserves this, she deserves this)

* * *

There are too many names on her personal list of fatalities now. Wells, Charlotte, Maya, Fox - and so many more. So many of her own people, all her fault. All her responsibility. As for floor 5, she doesn't know their names, and that's the hardest part - she remembers their eyes, all of them, remembers the way their skin curdled up against their bones; but she doesn't know their names. Maybe it's better this way. This way, she can't properly mourn them.

(a murderer shouldn't be allowed to mourn her victims)

As the days turn into weeks, the ache she feels for home becomes a steady part of her existence. There's a hole being worn out in her chest, and she doesn't think it'll ever be filled. She's coming to terms with it. This is her payment, her retribution. The one, small way that she can even hope to begin her atonement. _Father, I have sinned_. Isn't that how the religious used to begin their confessions, in the old days?

_Father, I have murdered._

_Father, I have torn families apart._

_Father, I know that this is all in my head but please, take some of this weight off of me. Give me a way to make up for my actions._

(remember - she deserves this. remember - she chose to be a monster)

* * *

She considers, once, just taking a step off one of the many steep cliffsides. No one would know - no one would care. But then, that would be the easy way out. She doesn't deserve silence, doesn't deserve a closing sentence. She's taking this the messy way, like it or not.

When she comes upon them, nearly a year later, her heart almost bursts.

She sees Bellamy, his mouth quirking up into a smile; Raven, rolling her eyes at Wick; Octavia, instructing one of the kids how to fight with a proud smile creeping up her face.

She misses them like they are her spine, and she can't move or breathe or live without them. But she still has sins to atone for, so she watches from the treeline, and when it gets too dark to see, she turns and slips into the brush.

She doesn't cry. She used up too many of her tears in the first week, and now - now she's just numb.

She can't feel, and she feels too much. So with weary limbs and an empty heart, she walks toward the ocean.

(does a monster get to have peace, after everything? does the blood wash away?)

Maybe there she'll find some freedom.

(she never will)


End file.
